Is has always been an issue for everybody to protect his belongings. As such, many kinds of locks have been invented. Though, because each lock is supposedly unique, a key is only coupled to a unique lock. As such, if one equips a place with various locks, this person and everyone allowed to access this place needs as many keys as the number of locks equipping the place. Furthermore, for an easy and friendly use of the keys, most of the time, they must be identified as well as the corresponding locks in order not to try every key on every lock each time a user wants to open a door for example.
Moreover, the feeling of security is misplaced because a key is easy to copy or to steal. Indeed, in order to have their mail checked and/or their plants watered during their vacation, people are easily tempted to make copies of their home keys. Furthermore, to increase the difficulty of accessing a specific area, surveillance systems such as sophisticated alarm systems have been developed over the years. For these, a password must also be memorized. Unfortunately, criminals are ingenious enough to try to overcome any protective system.
Similarly, the inconvenience of trying to restrict access of an area is also true when, for safety, for good neighborhood relationship, and or for moral reasons, the use of items of the daily life must be restrained. It is difficult to forbid a child to use a potentially dangerous tool, for example. It is well known that the child probably will be tempted to try to use the forbidden item. Furthermore, some teenagers listen to music at a very high volume without any kind of consideration for other family members and neighbors. Thus, unless the forbidden item is locked in a piece of furniture, which means a further key or a lock with a numeric password to remember, or put it in an inaccessible location for a young child for example, which means to remember to put it back after each use, the temptation is often too great.
It is well known to those skills in the art that a security access system that provides substantially secure access and does not require a password or access code is a biometric identification system. A biometric identification system accepts unique biometric information from a user and identifies the user by matching the information against information belonging to registered users of the system. As a matter of fact, the ultimate method of personal identification is not a card, which can be lost, loaned or stolen, nor a number code, which can be discovered; but an unchangeable, non-transferable and indisputably unique characteristic of the person himself, in the form of biometric information such as a fingerprint. Fingerprint sensing and matching is a reliable technique for personal identification and/or verification.
In a fingerprint input transducer or sensor, the finger under investigation is usually pressed against a flat surface, such as a side of a glass plate; the ridge and valley pattern of the finger tip is sensed by a sensing means such as an interrogating light beam.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,111,977 to Scott et al. discloses a hand-held portable fingerprint recognition and transmission device. The device includes a fingerprint scanner that encodes a fingerprint and sends via infrared or radio frequency transmitter the encoded fingerprint to a receiver located on the item to be secured. It is nonetheless necessary to have a central computer that analyzes the encoded fingerprint to allow recognition and authorization of an individual. The fingerprint scanner functions in conjunction with a keypad that allows specific operations. For example, in combination with a fingerprint, key 1 will open all the doors of the car, while key 2 opens only the trunk of the car. The keypad may also be used for providing a password for activating the fingerprint scanner.
A disadvantage of the device of Scott et al. is that in selecting a function using the keypad, memorisation of available functions and associated keys is required. Alternatively, every key is associated with one and only one function when the keypad is labeled.
In U.S. Pat. No. 6,088,585 to Schmitt et al. is disclosed a portable telecommunication device including a radio transceiver within a portable housing, a fingerprint sensor carried by the housing, and an authorizing feature for permitting use of the radio transceiver based upon the fingerprint sensor sensing a fingerprint of an authorized user.
A disadvantage of the device of Schmitt et al. is that the biometric sensor serves only a single security function—providing access to the telecommunications device—and is not useful for other functions, even though the overall device is a portable wireless transmitter.
Therefore, it is an abject of this invention to overcome such disadvantage and to provide a wireless personalized biometric device for receiving communication data from a plurality of devices in the vicinity of the wireless personalized device and for sending data to effect a function on a selected device from the plurality of devices.
It is a further object of the instant invention to provide a wireless personalized transceiver device to select a function from a plurality of available functions.
Still a further object of the instant invention is to provide a personalized and highly secure device to limit the use of a plurality of devices.